Edward Bellamy and Kang Youwei's utopian society: Comparative analyses

Abstract

© The author(s). The importance of the problem is determined by typological and functional similarity in reconsideration of the main social values having occurred at a turn of the XIX-XX centuries and nowadays. The article focuses on the comparative analyses of the models of the ideal society introduced by Kang Youwei (1858-1927) in 1890s and the American socialist Edward Bellamy (1850 - 1898). Despite the claims about Kang Youwei's complete intellectual isolation, his idea of a social ideal was strongly influenced by Bellamy's novel Looking Backward which was translated into Chinese. This fact lets us use the comparative method. The article shows that the Western lifestyle was the main justification for the use of the social experience of the United States for rebuilding China and eventually having global society (represented in those days as a utopia). The article may be useful to political scientists, sociologists and historians concerned with the public ideal and its use in the development of ideologies.